Motorola Mobility has been informed that its legal strategy to leverage …

Motorola Mobility has found itself on the receiving end of an antitrust investigation by the European Commission due to its alleged abuse of standards-essential patents related to WiFi, H.264, and 3G wireless networking. The Commission formally announced the investigation on Tuesday morning following complaints from both Apple and Microsoft that Motorola was not honoring its commitment to license its standards-related patents on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory ("FRAND") terms.

In the current legal war to dominate the smartphone market, Motorola has used a number of its FRAND-pledged patents to attempt to secure injunctions against both Apple and Microsoft. Motorola is attempting to use 3G-related patents against Apple in both Germany and the US—though a German court ruled against Motorola over at least one 3G-related patent—while Microsoft is being hammered over patents related to the H.264 video standard used in Windows and patents related to WiFi used in the Xbox 360.

"Following complaints by Apple and Microsoft, the Commission will investigate, in particular, whether by seeking and enforcing injunctions against Apple's and Microsoft's flagship products such as iPhone, iPad, Windows, and Xbox on the basis of patents it had declared essential to produce standard-compliant products, Motorola has failed to honour its irrevocable commitments made to standard setting organisations," the Commission said in a statement.

The EC investigation comes shortly after it launched a similar investigation of Samsung, which has been attempting to leverage its 3G-related patents against Apple. The investigation could be especially worrisome for Google, which was recently granted approval of its planned merger with Motorola. However, European and US regulators both warned that the combined entity would receive heightened scrutiny for potential antitrust violations.